I have finished my school year as a junior and there are a number of things I wish I knew prior to starting it. Everything gets really tough this time of your high school career and I can guarantee your teachers are not exaggerating when they say you need to be on top of your work.

You really need to study, especially in more rigorous programs like IB or Nursing. Losing a routine by forgetting for just a day is how people start to get lazy and put off a few minutes of work. It’s important to stay aware of everything so it can’t surprise you. Speaking personally, I ended up sick for three days in the middle of May because I was working myself to the bone from deadline to deadline. From planners and calendars, to Google Classroom’s to-do list, I assure you that you need to pay attention to each of them at least once a day. I tried to get everything done at once and I ended up feeling too overwhelmed to work properly.

Prioritizing your work is a very important piece of advice. I wouldn’t advise skipping classwork but knowing which ones hold more weight is important. I would put off one assignment for longer because I knew that I would have a heavier project due just a few days later.

With this phone ban in place, it’s easier to use moments of free time to complete lingering tasks and ignore the urge to doomscroll. Using lunch periods or the last five minutes of a class to write even a few words can make a difference in your work ethic. Thinking more often about work will eventually lead to more efficient decision making; rather than sitting in front of your laptop and thinking about what you could write or what the question might mean, you can actually work.

Don’t forget to look into scholarships, especially once your peers start discussing them. I missed out on a few opportunities because I thought that maybe I would get another day to apply but I soon ran out of time. Life goes by fast and the dumb decisions you’ve made will more or less catch up to you.

Good luck to you all!

Bernice Lee, 2026